


in my head it's only letters, make it make sense to make it better

by aheartcalledhome



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, The Word Therapy Is Said A Lot But No One Does Anything, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22863100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aheartcalledhome/pseuds/aheartcalledhome
Summary: going to therapy is not as simple as it sounds
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	in my head it's only letters, make it make sense to make it better

**Author's Note:**

> s/o to my buddy, who was worrying about the fact she hadn't written in a while, and the absolute brilliance she churned out for this prompt compared to whatever the hell this is
> 
> _prompt (via the incomparable unspeakable3): Rubatosis: the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat_
> 
> title from [cavetown's telescope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arhVOqG_xZ4) because i listened to it for thirty minutes while writing this, and honestly, he should get the credit for this whole premise

Hermione calls it survivor’s guilt. She finds him mountains of papers, books, and articles about battle fatigue, about shell shock, about child soldiers. He doesn't know how to tell her the war started earlier than their first year, that he's been fighting for longer than he remembers for the privilege of living to fight another day. He doesn't know how to tell her that waking up every morning isn't something he's always thankful for immediately. He doesn't know how to tell her that if he truly has this pee-tee-es-dee thing, he's had it for much longer than she thinks.

It's yet another curse to be added to a pile of things that should have broken him. Harry's brain is the maze from the Third Task made abstract, all manner of horrors waiting to jump out and devour unsuspecting souls. (All manner of things he has tried to forget lying in wait for when he feels even a sliver of joy.) He is dangerous, all too much trouble to be dealt with. Maybe the cupboard will be bigger this time. He thinks of how many people he has killed, how many have died in his name, and wonders if a cell in Azkaban is too good for him.

He is tired. He is allowed to feel tired for the first time since Dumbledore left him on the Dursleys’ doorstep and he doesn’t know what to do. The emotions are unfamiliar, now that he has the time and space to feel them instead of locking everything away deep in his heart, feeding them to the snarling, vicious monster in his chest as a sacrifice. The monster lies quiet now, docile and yearning for something resembling stability, suspended in dreams by the music of a life, a future that Harry had never dared to imagine.

He wishes he had the luxury of breaking under the strain, of shattering into a thousand pieces like a glass smashed against the wall, but he worries that he can’t anymore. Like the ability to let go has been beaten out of him, hunted out of him, trained out of him. Like choosing to come back had ripped whatever of his humanity remained from his chest and left it cowering under a bench in King’s Cross with Voldemort’s soul. 

Ron is the first to say the word therapy in July, just long enough before Harry’s birthday that Ron thinks it won’t ruin the first party they’ve felt right having in a while. Joke’s on him. Harry’s never had much patience for birthdays, especially his own. It amuses Harry endlessly when he isn’t obsessing over it, each letter haunting him with the obsessive ferocity of the (dead) names of (dead) classmates carved on the monument at Hogwarts.

He wakes in the space between dreams and reality on the mornings he’s lucky enough to have slept, fighting off nightmares for what feels like hours. He checks his watch. His alarm has only been ringing for five minutes. Time stretches out before him, distended and yearning for some kind of resolution, guts pouring out of a slashed stomach, and there he is, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest again. It feels like everything leads him there, his footsteps, his thoughts, everything circling back to the moment he chose death and was denied even that small mercy. 

Hermione says the word therapy in September, after Harry has chosen school over the Aurors in a fit of righteous impulsivity, while reading over an essay that he thought made sense. His thoughts are hard to follow, she says. They jump around. There’s no consistency. Somehow, he thinks she’s not talking about the origins and purposes of the Protean charm. All he can think is that he’s thankful she isn’t giving him a grade, because he’d be failing miserably. He’d earned his Troll in Being Well Adjusted by the age of five, but some optimistic part of him had thought he’d be well rid of all of that by now.

He’d saved the world, hadn’t he? He’d rid the word of evil, and still he couldn’t hear the word cupboard without cringing. What a joke.

He clings to Ron and Hermione until they quit him from Australia, clings to Ginny until school grows busy and they are limited to smiling at each other across the common room for weeks. He comes down the stairs from Ron's room on Christmas, sees a gift with his name written on it, and wants to rip off his own skin. Nothing could contain the love and fear he feels, both wrapped up in a Gordian knot, at being a part of something. At being a part of the Weasley family for real, for forever, now that everything is over. At being wanted, at being important, at meaning something to a group of people who so obviously don't need him to do something for them. Hermione blends seamlessly into the chaos, slips in and out at will, navigating the whole jungle of their trust with ease.

Not for the first time, Harry wishes he was more like her. Like Ron. Like everyone else. 

Instead, he is this mangled, broken thing, lying on yet another doorstep he's been left at, thrown away on. He can't shake the feeling that one morning, Mrs. Weasley will say they took him in out of the goodness of her heart, and even if it isn't followed up by demanding he earn his keep, even those words would be enough to bury Harry forever. Even snatches of yelled words from years ago are enough to wound him mortally these days, send him scrambling from a room like it's Gringotts all over again, the ceiling raining down on him as the dragon flies them away from the consequences of his actions.

What can he give them that they don't already have? He can't bring back Fred. He's tried. It didn’t work. Is it worth the trouble?

Ginny tells him to go to therapy.

He doesn't listen.

**Author's Note:**

> [come hang with me on twitter](https://www.twitter.com/tamilprongspttr) if you wanna be friends! if we were mutuals on tumblr, hit me up for my discord handle! thanks for reading!


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